Benczes - Semantic of Idioms

Reka Benczes The semantics of idioms:a cognitive linguistic approach

Introduction

The category of idioms has been a source of intrigue due to the peculiar

semantic character this group bears: the overall meaning of an idiomatic

expression is not equal to the sum meaning of its constituents. Right until

the late seventies the main trend in idiom analysis was to view these expres-

sions as non-compositional items, whose meaning is arbitrary and does not

have anything to do with the meaning of the constituents.

However, research in the past twenty years has shown that there is

denitely more to the semantics of idioms than meets the eye. A large group

does seem to be partially compositional in nature, that is the meaning of

the constituents is connected to the overall meaning of the idiom. This

view has been adopted by cognitive linguistics as well, which maintains that

the \connection" between the constituents' literal meaning and the overall

gurative meaning arises from \motivation" stemming from the unconscious

conceptual structures in the language user's head.

The rst part of the paper will be in a theoretical vein: it will outline

the main tenets of the traditional approach and will then go on to discuss

the basis for the conceptual view of idioms. Following in the footsteps of

cognitive linguistics, in the second part of the paper I wish to undertake

an analysis of a special set of English idioms, namely those which have the

body part head within them.

1The aim is to investigate what conceptual

metaphors or metonymies underlie these idioms and what these conceptual

vehicles might say about our everyday conceptualisations of the head.

1 The idioms analysed in the paper are based on Gulland & Hinds-Howell (1994)and Nagy (1996, n.d.). See the Appendix for a list of the expressions.

T H E E V E N Y E A R B O O K 5 (2002) 1730 ISSN 12188808 17

18 Reka Benczes

1 The non-compositional view of idioms

One of the basic tenets of formal semantics is the compositionality of mean-

ing, which is also referred to as Frege's principle. According to this the-

orem, the meaning of a sentence can be deduced from the meaning of its

constituents (Kiefer 2000 : 17). Although the focus of Frege's principle is

the sentence, the theory of the compositionality of meaning has played a

predominant role in the semantic investigations of idioms.

Most linguists dene an idiom as a polylexemic expression whose mean-

ing cannot be deduced from the meaning of its parts, though this broad

denition is most often based on popular examples such as kick the bucket

or shoot the breeze.

2In eect, when learning a new idiom, the speaker

has to form an arbitrary link between the idiom and its nonliteral mean-

ing. Following this idea, Swinney & Cutler (1979, cited in Titone & Connine

1999 : 1657), proposed the lexical representation model, which suggested that

idioms were stored and retrieved when needed in a similar fashion to long

words. This supposition brought forth the view that the syntactic behaviour

of idioms corresponded to the idiomatic meaning in a very direct way: the

idiom kick the bucket was believed to behave syntactically as its semantic

counterpart, `to die' (Cruse 1991).

However, the grammatical restrictions

3which seem to characterise a

rather large class of idioms resulted in the view that idioms are syntacti-

cally \frozen elements" (Gibbs 1994 : 271). Fraser (1970 : 33) suggested that

idioms can be organised into a \frozenness hierarchy" ranging from expres-

sions that are able to undergo nearly all the grammatical transformations

without losing their gurative meaning (e.g., lay down the law ) to idioms

that are unable to undergo even the simplest transformation without losing

their meaning (e.g., face the music ).

4

2 It should be kept in mind, however, that phrasal verbs such as give in or see through(somebody) or compounds such as redcoat or deadline can also be included in themixed bag of idiomatic expressions since the meaning of these examples cannot bededuced from the constituents. For a good summary of definitions on idiomaticitysee Gibbs (1994 : 266268).

3 For discussions on the syntactic limitations and idiosyncrasies of idioms see Allan(1986), Fraser (1970), Nunberg et al. (1994), Palmer (1986) and Weinreich (1969).

4 Nunberg et al. (1994 : 491) believe that the non-compositional view is flawed be-cause [m]uch of the literature on the syntax of idioms is thus based on the mis-conception that no such semantic compositionality exists. The authors put fortha number of claims to support their argument (pp. 500501). E.g., some idiomsare modifiable with adjectives or relative clauses (kick the filthy habit, Your remark

The semantics of idioms: a cognitive linguistic approach 19

The \frozenness" of idioms comes up not only in their syntactic limi-

tations, but also in their semantics as well. The non-compositional view of

idioms regards many idioms as \frozen" or \dead" metaphors. According to

Cruse (1991 : 42), the metaphorical interpretation of a sentence or an idiom

is most likely to be sparked o by an inappropriateness in the utterance's

literal meaning. However, if a metaphor is used frequently with a particular

meaning, then it loses its individuality and hearers store the metaphorical

meaning as one of the standard senses of the expression. Thus the interpre-

tation of the utterance no longer requires the activation of the metaphorical

approach, but merely requires the \looking up, as it were, of a dictionary

entry" (ibid.). Most often the link between the metaphor and the literal

meaning of the idiom is lost.

Gibbs (1994 : 273) argues that the reason why idioms are often claimed

to be \dead metaphors" is because linguists confuse dead metaphors with

conventional ones. Since people usually have little knowledge of the original

metaphorical roots of an idiom such as be soft hearted, it is believed that the

comprehension of idioms is the same as knowing the meaning of individual

words, which is based on convention. However, words which appear to be

salient examples of dead metaphors have evident metaphorical roots. For

example, Sweetser (1990 : 32{33) gives an account of how the meaning of

see in Indo-European languages regularly acquired the meaning of know

due to the pervasive conceptual metaphor of knowing is seeing. As new

words for seeing developed, the meanings of these were extended to their

meanings of knowing as well, thus giving a motivated reason for semantic

change. The knowing is seeing metaphor is still an integral part of our

conceptual system, thus it would not be correct to suggest that the reason

why see is related to know is based on a dead metaphor.

2 From compositionality to conceptuality

There have been a number of attempts to describe how idioms dier in

their compositionality. Nunberg (1978, cited in Titone & Connine 1999 :

1661) suggested a characterisation of idioms based on how the constituents'

literal word meaning contributes to the general meaning of the expression.

According to this system, idioms can be grouped into three classes: nor-

mally decomposable idioms (a part of the idiom is used literally, e.g., the

touched a nerve that I didnt even know existed), some idioms can be quantified(Thats the third gift horse shes looked in the mouth this year), parts of idioms maybe emphasised through topicalisation (His closets, you might find skeletons in).

20 Reka Benczes

question in pop the question ), abnormally decomposable idioms (the refer-

ents of an idiom's parts can be identied metaphorically, e.g., the buck in

pass the buck ) and semantically non-decomposable idioms (the meanings

of the constituents do not contribute at all to the gurative meaning, e.g.,

kick the bucket ).

Nunberg's (1978) typology of idioms was further investigated by Gibbs

& Nayak (1989, cited in Gibbs 1994 : 279). In a research carried out on the

analysability of idioms, subjects were asked to rate the degree to which

the components in idioms contribute to the overall meaning. The results

indicated that American speakers had no diculties in grouping idioms on

the basis of their decomposability into three categories, which were similar

to the categorisation suggested by Nunberg (1978).

In addition, a series of reading-time studies showed that it took much

less time for subjects to process the decomposable idioms than to read the

non-decomposable expressions (Gibbs et al. 1989, cited in Gibbs 1994 : 285).

The normally decomposable and the abnormally decomposable idioms were

processed faster than their literal control phrases, but it took longer to pro-

cess non-decomposable idioms than their literal counterparts. Such results

suggest that people do try to analyse the compositionality of idioms when

understanding idiomatic phrases, by trying to give independent meanings to

the individual words and recognising how the meaningful units make up the

overall interpretation of the phrase. This questions the non-compositional

view that speakers assign arbitrary meaning to idioms which are recalled

from memory when needed.

5

The analysability and compositionality of idioms point to the idea

that the meaning of the constituents of idioms might be related to the

concepts to which the idioms actually refer to. Lako (1987 : 447{448) states

that conventional images (mental images which are shared by a cultural

community) play a very crucial point in language, especially in the case

of idioms. Conventional images not only help in forming new idioms but

5 In an experiment regarding the comprehension of idioms Giora & Fein (1999) cameto a seemingly opposite conclusion to that of Gibbs et al. (1989). According tothe results, the processing of familiar idioms in an environment biased towards theidiomatic meaning activated the figurative meaning only, without evoking the less-salient literal meaning. However, the authors do not give an account of the idiomsthey took under analysis, nor do they explain what they mean by familiar idiomsand do not provide information on the decompositionality of the expressions either.The fact that the familiar idioms in an idiomatic context did not activate theliteral meaning might stem from the decomposable nature of the idioms themselves,similar to the case of the English shoot the breeze.


can also be used to explain old ones. Lako asked hundreds of people what

image they have of the expression keeping someone at arm's length, and quite

remarkably there was a rather high degree of systematicity among the replies

concerning such details as how the arm and the hand are held with respect

to the body or whether the palm is open or not. These results prompted

Lako to conclude that in a large number of idioms meaning is not arbitrary

but motivated.

6Motivation arises from conventional images, conceptual

metaphors and conceptual metonymies, which provide the \link" between

the idiom and its meaning. For instance, in the case of the idiom keep

someone at arm's length, two metaphors, intimacy is physical closeness

and social (or psychological) harm is physical harm map the literal

meaning, i.e., the image, into the meaning of the idiom.

Gibbs & O'Brien (1990) wished to investigate further Lako's view in

an experiment where subjects were asked to answer detailed questions on

their mental images of twenty-ve common idioms (e.g., blow one's stack,

crack the whip, button one's lips, lose one's marbles, spill the beans ). Their

hypothesis was that meanings of many idioms are partially motivated by dif-

ferent conceptual metaphors which map information from one conceptual or

source domain to a target domain. Gibbs and O'Brien found a surprisingly

high level of similarity the way the subjects conceptualised the idioms: on

average 75% of the subjects' mental images described similar general images.

However, these general images were able to capture specic details within

an image; e.g., both idioms ip one's lid and hit the ceiling mean `to get

angry', but subjects imagined a force causing a container to release pressure

in a violent manner. Such similarity in people's understanding of idioms is

based on conceptual metaphors. In the case of the anger-related idioms, it

is the mind is a container (Lako & Johnson 1980) and anger is the

heat of a fluid in a container (Kovecses 1986) which motivate them.

There are many idioms where it is not a conceptual metaphor, but

rather a conceptual metonymy and conventional knowledge which \link"

the idiom to its meaning. Kovecses & Szabo (1996 : 337{344) took under

close analysis those English idioms which have to do with the human hand.

They have found that the conventional knowledge on the use of the hand

6 Lakoff defined motivation in the following way: The relationship between A andB is motivated just in case there is an independently existing link, L, such thatA-L-B fit together. L makes sense of the relationship between A and B (Lakoff1987 : 448).

22 Reka Benczes

give rise to the idioms handful

7and with an open hand,

8among others. One

of the most popular metonymies in English for idioms based on the hand

is the hand stands for the person which motivates a large number

of idioms, such as a factory hand, from hand to hand and all hands on

deck. This metonymy is most probably based on the metonymy the hand

stands for the activity. The prototypical person is an active person,

and if there is a conceptual metonymy such as the latter then it is natural

that there is also a metonymy where the hand stands for the person

(Kovecses & Szabo 1996 : 341).

Yet another consequence of the conceptual view of idioms is that peo-

ple do not view the meanings of spill the beans and reveal the secret as

equivalent (Gibbs 1994 : 303{305). Idiomatic expressions seem to possess

very particular gurative meanings that result from the entailments of the

underlying conceptual metaphors. Spill the beans cannot be paraphrased as

`to reveal a secret' because the former implies certain details about the ac-

tion itself which the latter seems to lack. Gibbs & O'Brien (1990 : 44) have

found that the idiomatic expression is used to describe a situation where the

action was unintentional, it was caused by some internal pressure within the

mind of the revealer and the action was judged to be performed in a forceful

manner. Literal counterparts, such as reveal a secret are not motivated by

the same conceptual metaphors as the idioms themselves

9and are thus less

specic in meaning.

7 The explanation is the following: It is a part of our everyday knowledge that thehand is too small to hold too many things easily at the same time (Kovecses &Szabo 1996 : 338).

8 The explanation is the following: The image of a person physically giving objectsto another with an open hand implies the knowledge that nothing is held back andeverything can be taken (Kovecses & Szabo 1996 : 339).

9 In the case of the expression spill the beans, Gibbs & OBrien (1990 : 38) suggestthat the conceptual metaphors the mind is a container and ideas are phys-ical entities motivate the idioms meaning: ideas are communicated by takingthem out of the mind, putting them into words, and sending them to other people.The conventional images for spill the beans show that the container is about thesize of the human head, the beans correspond to the information or ideas which aresupposed to be kept in the container, but which are accidentally let out throughspilling.


3 The human body in language

Cognitive linguistics argues that our conceptual system is structured by

conceptual metaphors and metonymies; that is, a large part of our abstract

concepts are understood through the terms of other, more concrete concepts.

Lako & Johnson (1980 : 59) maintain that people typically conceptualise

the \nonphysical" in terms of the \physical", and the main source of our

physical experience in the world is our body and its interaction with the

environment. Johnson (1987 : 209) claims that \[t]here is no aspect of our

understanding that is independent of the nature of the human organism."

Such views suggest that one of the most predominant source domains

by which we understand target domains is the human body. Such a hy-

pothesis is not new at all; Sperber in 1930 noticed that topics which \pro-

duce intense feelings or in some sense are problematic become centers of

metaphoric attraction." When this happens, concepts and terms from more

familiar domains are used to understand the subject in question (Smith et al.

1981 : 912). Smith et al. (1981) wished to investigate Sperber's hypothesis

by analysing the use of gurative language in American literature between

1675{1975. They collected 1,882 gures of speech

10from 24 American au-

thors and classied them on the basis of both the target and the source

domains of the expressions. The results showed that the human body was

the most often used source domain with 555 instances of usage, while nature,

which came second, was a metaphorical vehicle only 384 times.

Heine's (1995) ndings further demonstrate that the human body is our

primary source of experience and thus plays a crucial role in human under-

standing. Heine looked at the spatial expressions of 125 African languages

and 104 Oceanic languages, and found that \if in a given language a lexi-

cal item is recruited for the expression of the spatial concepts on, under,

front, or in, then the rst choice will be a body part term" (1995 : 123).

The pervasiveness of the human body comes through the category of

idioms as well. A frequency count of Nagy's (n.d.) English idiom dictionary

showed that out of the 12,000 entries more than 2,000 idioms were based

on the human body. The most productive body parts were the hand (89

idioms), the head (69 idioms), the eye (62 idioms), the heart (61 idioms),

the face (58 idioms) and the mind (58 idioms). It needs to be emphasised

that the present paper does not wish to account for all the idioms of the

10 Smith et al. (1981) selected only novel figures of speech from the texts, phrasesand expressions which were felt to be original ones coined by the author, or atleast used in a new sense by the author.

24 Reka Benczes

head, as this would be an impossible enterprise. The aim of the paper is

to put the cognitive linguistic theory on idioms into practice and analyse

whether there are any visible tendencies among these idioms that can later

be extended possibly to further idioms as well that do not appear in this

study. (See the Appendix for a list of the idioms examined in this paper.)

4 Idioms with head

As the analysis will show, English head idioms are not expressions with

random meanings, but are structured along perceivable cognitive vehicles.

Many expressions are motivated by a very generalised container metaphor

which conceptualises the head as a vessel of ideas and certain emotions. The

idioms are also motivated by metonymies which provide a stand-for relation-

ship between the head and mental ability on the one hand, and the head

and control on the other hand. A smaller group of idiomatic expressions can

be traced back to conventional knowledge about the properties of the head.

4.1 The head as a container

Cognitive linguistic theory views container metaphors

11as a special type

of ontological metaphors. The function of the latter is to give some sort

of ontological status to general categories of abstract target concepts. It is

with the help of ontological metaphors that speakers conceive of their expe-

riences in terms of unspecied objects, substances and containers. Although

this general level does not provide us with specic information about the

target, it is, according to Kovecses (2002 : 34{35) \a cognitively important

job to assign a basic status in terms of objects, substances, etc. to many

of our experiences. The kind of experiences that require this the most are

those that are not clearly delineated, vague, or abstract." Two common

underlying ontological metaphors in the case of the head idioms are the

head is a container and ideas are phyiscal objects, as in expressions such

as get ideas into one's head, put ideas into someone's head, get something

into one's head and put out of one's head.

From the idioms above it emerges that the head is conceptualised as a

bounded container into which ideas can be put into or taken out of. What

is intriguing is that the ideas are located originally outside of the bounded

11 Lakoff & Johnson (1980 : 29) emphasise the importance of container metaphors,and argue that as physical beings our bodies themselves are containers, with anin-out orientation.


region of the head, as the phrasal verbs of the expressions indicate (get into,

put into, put out of ). However, by xing the ideas in the contained space

of the head, they become immediately accessible, quantiable and they can

also be referred to as \my idea" or \your idea."

12

Once ontological metaphors have been made use of to provide general

structure to previously undelineated things, speakers can give further struc-

ture to conceptualisations with the help of more specic metaphors.

13Some

elaboration can also be found on the head is a container and ideas are

physical objects ontological metaphors. In the case of the idiom have

rocks in one's head, the head is weighed down by heavy, sturdy objects.

If the place in the container is taken up by stones, then there is no space

left inside for ideas, a situation which results in low mental ability. The

idiom having a thick head hints at one way English speakers conceptualise

the process of thinking. The expression implies that the head is visualised

as a sieve through which ideas can enter. If the sieve has too thick walls,

then it is dicult for substances| ideas| to pass into the container and

the result is once again idiocy.

It has been mentioned above that by xing and locating things in a

contained space (as we do with ideas in the head), we are able to identify and

access the previously unbounded objects. This characteristic is detectable

in the expression need to have one's head examined. If someone has strange

thoughts, then the solution is to check what ideas| objects| are in the

container. The notion of identication also comes up in the idiom clear

one's head. By clearing the container from unuseful ideas, new ones can

enter the head.

The head does not contain only ideas, but is also a repository for the

emotion conceit. Unlike ideas, conceit is not conceptualised as a physical

object but as a uid, as the idiom get a swelled head shows. Along with

the expressions go to someone's head and give someone a big head a quite

coherent picture can be formed on how English speakers visualise conceit:

conceit is a uid which rises to the head and when this happens, the size

12 Johnson (1987 : 22) argues that one of the consequences of the containment imageis the relative fixing or location within the container, which means that thecontained object becomes accessible. Kovecses (2002 : 35) also emphasises thatonce a thing is delineated, it can be immediately conceptualised as a possession.

13 E.g., the mind is conceptualised by the ontological metaphor the mind is a con-tainer. This conceptualisation is further elaborated on by the more specificmetaphor the mind is a machine, for which a linguistic example is my mindis rusty this morning (Kovecses 2002 : 35).

26 Reka Benczes

of the head grows. This folk understanding might seem very naive at rst

sight, but actually it can be traced back to physiological observations. One

of these is that all of us are familiar with the experience of having uid in our

bodies. In addition, according to Kovecses (1990 : 102), a physiological eect

which accompanies conceit is the head held unnaturally high which

motivates the metaphor a conceited person is up/high, as in the idioms

hold one's head up high or be head and shoulders above somebody. When

something is higher than usual it also seems bigger in size.

14Given these

two basic experiences (uid in our bodies and the correlation of height with

size) we can easily account for the metaphors the head is a container

and conceit is a fluid in a container which motivate the idioms get a

swelled head, go to someone's head and give someone a big head.

There are also a number of idioms, such as a hothead, keep a level head

and keep a cool head which are related to the concepts of anger and calm-

ness. Lako & Kovecses (1987) have analysed how anger is conceptualised

in English in great depth and have come to the conclusion that anger is

conceived of as a hot uid inside a container, where the container is the

body itself. When the intensity of the anger increases, the uid rises in

the container and eventually it might cause the container to explode (e.g.,

my anger kept building up inside me, he was bursting with anger and when

I told him, he just exploded ).

15The head idioms are also instances of the

anger is a hot fluid in a container, although in this case the con-

tainer is not the body, but the head. As long as the temperature of the uid

does not rise, we are able to remain calm and make sensible judgements, as

the meanings of the idioms keep a level head and keep a cool head imply.

However, if the heat increases, the temperature of the uid also rises and

our composure is lost, as suggested by the expression be a hothead.

4.2 Metonymy

Conceptual metaphor is not the only trope which can be used to explain the

motivation behind idioms with head. Metonymy can also be detected in a

number of examples, as in have a good head for doing something, have a good

head on one's shoulders and use one's head. In these cases the conceptual

metonymy the head stands for mental ability is at work. The idioms

14 The conceptual metaphors more is up and less is down (as in the examples myincome rose last year and he is underage) are based on this physical experience(Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 15).

15 Examples are from Kovecses (2002 : 9697).


put their heads together and two heads are better than one also belong to

this category, however, they are at the same time instances of the metaphor

more is better.

The idioms lose one's head, go out of one's head, laugh one's head o

and scream one's head o are all related to intense emotions (viz., love or

anger, love, enjoyment and fright, respectively) under which the experiencer

\loses" his/her head. In these cases the metonymy the head stands for

control (and rationality) is at play and the image the idioms seem to

suggest is that under the eect of an intense emotion the emotion \takes

over" and mental abilities such as rational judgement are swept aside|that

is, they are \lost." A similar image is evoked by the idiom let one's heart

rule one's head where rational judgement (interpreted metonymically as the

head) is subdued under the emotions (that is, the heart).

4.3 Conventional knowledge

Apart from metaphor and metonymy, the nonscientic, folk understanding

of particular domains shared by a linguistic community can also motivate

idiomatic expressions. Conventional knowledge|as referred to in cognitive

linguistic literature | includes standard, everyday information about the

properties, functioning, shape and size of the head. For example, some of

the general knowledge we possess about the properties of the head is that

when a baby is born, a part of its skull is soft and hardens only a few months

after birth. If a person has very low mental abilities, the idiom be soft in

the head can be used, referring to the similarity between a new-born baby's

mental abilities and that of the person in question. If the soft part of the

baby's skull is damaged, mental disability might result. This conventional

knowledge is reected in the idiom be touched in the head. The expression

be bone-headed from the neck up also illustrates the motivating power of

conventional knowledge: if bone replaces the brain, then a person cannot

possess any mental ability.

Our conventional knowledge also extends to common gestures involving

the head. Scratching one's head is a tell-tale sign of being unsure or mysti-

ed|which is why scratch one's head means `to wonder, to be mystied'.

The situation is similar with the expression shake one's head, which means

`to give a negative response.' Kovecses & Szabo (1996 : 339) claim that id-

ioms based on gestures are special because the motivation for the meaning

of the expression comes from what we know of the gesture itself|and not

from our knowledge of the English language.

28 Reka Benczes

5 Conclusion

The meaning of idioms has been thought of in linguistic literature as largely

conventional, where the sum meaning of the separate words is not equal to

the literary meaning of the expression. This view|also known as the tradi-

tional or non-compositional approach|has been challenged by a number of

linguists and it has emerged that compositionality does play an important

role in the understanding of idioms. Cognitive linguistics has gone further by

positing that most idioms are motivated, where motivation arises from con-

ventional images, conceptual metaphors and conceptual metonymies, which

provide the \link" between the idiom and its meaning.

Following the assumptions made by cognitive linguistics the paper ex-

amined English head idioms and found that the analysis gave a relatively

clear picture of how the head is conceptualised in English: it is a container

of ideas, it stands for our mental abilities, it is the seat of the emotion of

conceit and also stands for control. The analysis has also shown that

the various idioms stand in close relation to one another through variations

on the metaphors and metonymies which underlie the conceptualisations

of the head. It can be safely assumed that with the help of conceptual

metaphor theory the future of idiom analysis has nally got a head start.

appendix

Idiom Meaning

a hot-head/hothead a hot-tempered/excitable/restless person

be bone-headed from the neck up to be completely stupid

be head and shoulders above sy/sg to be superior to/better by far than sy or sg

be soft in the head to be stupid

be touched in the head to be mentally disturbed/slightly insane/unbalanced

clear ones head to restore/regain ones mental balance

get a swelled head to become conceited

get ideas into ones head to have foolish thoughts/intentions

get sg into ones head 1. to insist on sg, 2. to comprehend/realise sg

get sg through sys thick head/skull to make sy realise sg

give sy a big head to make sy conceited

go out of ones head to be madly in love

go to sys head to make sy conceited

have a good head for doing sg to have a natural talent for sg

have a good head on ones shoulders to be very talented/intelligent

have/get a swelled head to be conceited/overconfident

have a thick head to be dull-witted/stupid


Idiom Meaning

have rocks in ones head to be stupid/crazy

hold ones head up/high to show dignity/pride/self-esteem

keep a cool head to act rationally under pressure

keep a level head/be level-headed to remain calm and sensible

laugh ones head off to shake with laughter

let ones heart rule ones head to be too sentimental; to let ones emotions take over

lose ones head 1. to be irrationally in love, 2. to get angry about sg

need to have ones head examined to be crazy

put ideas into sys head to make unwelcome suggestions to sy

put their heads together to confer with/consult with each other

scratch ones head to wonder; to be mystified

scream ones head off to shout/scream

shake ones head to give a negative answer

two heads are better than one two minds can accomplish more than one

use ones head to use sound/reasonable judgement

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Benczes - Semantic of Idioms